by Steve Gardner, USA TODAY Sports

by Steve Gardner, USA TODAY Sports

BOSTON â?? Breaking down the AL Championship Series Game 6 at Fenway Park.

Red Sox 5, Tigers 2: Red Sox win series 4-2.

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State of the Series: A series dominated by pitching ends with another close one. And the Boston Red Sox will have three days to rest before they host the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 1 of the World Series. Boston's victory prevents the Tigers from repeating as American League champions.

The Red Sox will have left-hander Jon Lester (2-1, 2.33 ERA in the playoffs) on the mound Wednesday against the Cardinals' Adam Wainwright (2-1, 1.57). Both pitchers will be working on full rest and both teams will have time to set their rotations the way they want them.

The two teams will meet in a rematch of the 2004 World Series, one in which the Red Sox snapped an 86-year title drought with a four-game sweep of the Cardinals.

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Man of the moment: The biggest contribution Red Sox right fielder Shane Victorino had made in the postseason before Game 6 was getting hit by a pitch a record five times. He had struggled at the plate, hitting just .229 and even abandoning switch-hitting.

When he came to the plate in the bottom of the seventh with the Red Sox trailing 2-1, Victorino delivered the biggest hit of his Red Sox career. On an 0-2 pitch from Jose Veras, he hammered a hanging curve into the Green Monster seats to turn a one-run deficit into a 5-2 lead.

In addition to the hit-by-pitch mark, Victorino added another entry into the postseason record book. The grand slam was his second in the postseason (he also hit one in the 2008 NL Division Series as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies) and it tied him with Jim Thome as the only players with more than one playoff slam.

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Game 6 pivot point: The key play of the game may have come one batter before Victorino's grand slam. Tigers shortstop Jose Iglesias, who has made several highlight-reel plays during the postseason, bobbled a grounder up the middle off the bat of Jacoby Ellsbury and couldn't make a play.

The error came after the Red Sox had put runners on first and second with one out. It would have been difficult â?? even for Iglesias â?? to get a double play on the ball, but just getting one out would have given the Tigers an opportunity to retire Victorino and get out of the inning with the lead intact.

Instead, reliever Jose Veras had no margin for error against Victorino, who made him pay.

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Needing a mulligan: Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder committed a baserunning blunder in the top of the sixth inning that may have kept his team from jumping out to a big lead.

After Victor Martinez had put Detroit on top 2-1 with a two-run single to advance Fielder to third with nobody out, Fielder hesitated on a ground ball to second baseman Dustin Pedroia.

As Pedroia played a quick game of chase with Martinez as he was going from first to second, Fielder stopped halfway between third and home. After Pedroia applied the tag on Martinez for the first out, he fired home and caught Fielder in a rundown to complete the double play.

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What you missed on TV: The night at Fenway got off to a rollicking start with local favorites the Dropkick Murphys singing the national anthem. Instead of leaving the field immediately afterward, the quintet â?? clad in Red Sox jerseys with the number 619 (Boston's area code) on the back â?? broke into a live version of "Shipping Up to Boston," complete with Irish dancers in the fungo circles. That song was formerly the entrance music for Jonathan Papelbon when he was the Red Sox closer.

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Manager's Special: Red Sox manager John Farrell hasn't been afraid to go to his bullpen fairly early this postseason, but with starter Clay Buchholz running out of gas in the sixth after allowing the first two batters to reach base, he needed 12 outs.

With runners on first and second he called on southpaw Franklin Morales, to face the slumping Prince Fielder.

When Morales walked Fiedler on four pitches to load the bases Farrell chose to leave him in to force Victor Martinez to hit from his weaker side. Morales only pitched 25 1/3 innings for Boston this season, but in his career, right-handers hit 73 points higher against him than lefties do.

Martinez made the Red Sox pay by lining a two-run single off the Green Monster to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead.

It may not have mattered in the end because Martinez has been the Tigers' best hitter in the playoffs, but the at-bat may have come too early in the game for Farrell to go to Craig Breslow in that situation. Instead, he got 1 2/3 scoreless innings from Brandon Workman after taking Morales out.

Farrell's confidence in his offense may have played a role in the decision as well because he was still able to have Junichi Tazawa, Breslow and Koji Uehara hold the Tigers scoreless for the final 2 1/3 innings.